President Barack Obama is taking a Jekyll & Hyde approach to energy, often contradicting himself to avoid mustering the political will to drill more at home and ease the country's dependence on foreign oil, says Charlie Drevna, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers.

The president recently grabbed headlines by halting the expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline to bring in more oil from Canada as well as from the Bakken oil fields in Montana and North Dakota to refineries further south on environmental concerns.

Meanwhile, the president continues to call for more development of solar and wind-power energy sources, among others, but stops short of calling for more drilling for oil and gas where it matters.

It's time to stop skirting the issues, Drevna says, as the country can ill afford to rely on pricey crude from abroad.

"The president has called for an all-of-the-above strategy on energy policy. And after some reflection on my part and on others, I have to agree with him. What he wants is an all-of-the-above strategy — he wants to do solar, he wants to do wind, he wants to do biofuels," Drevna tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.

"Unfortunately, it appears he doesn't want to do anything below — oil, natural gas, etc. And it's something that we really as a nation we have to address."

Arguments that drilling at home won't affect crude and gasoline prices are flawed, especially since the president has asked the country's allies to do just that.

"On the one hand, the president will say increasing our own domestic supply of oil and natural gas will not have any impact on prices, and on the next hand he'll go to Saudi Arabia or he'll go to Brazil and say 'please increase your production because we need to lower world oil prices,'" Drevna says.

"That's a Jekyll & Hyde approach to energy policy."

While nothing can affect high oil and gasoline prices in the very near future, action today can send a loud and clear message to the markets that can lower prices even before new supply comes on line.

"The first thing the president can do is allow the development and construction of the Keystone XL pipeline," Drevna says.

Doing so would pump in at least 700,000 barrels of oil a day of Canadian oil and another 150,000 barrels to 200,000 barrels from the Bakken oil reserves in Montana and North Dakota.

"That will send to the international marketplace again that the United States is dead serious about our energy future and we're dead serious about taking charge of our own energy future."

"The first thing we have to do is realize that this is a very, very energy-rich nation. Not a energy-poor nation as President Obama and his supporters have tried to convince the American people. We need to have access to the vast treasure trove of natural resources of oil and natural gas that we find right here, under our feet and off our shores."